Return to this thread December 2023 - New Years Resolutions

belfastgirl23

Following on from our December 2021 resolutions thread this is your chance to set your intentions for 2023. This is probably a good time for a lot of us to set at least one money saving intention, it is set to be a tough year for a lot of people sadly.

As always I’m taking some time to think and will come back and post mine in a couple of days but setting this up now as I know some people are posting updates already. I will go back and update mine from last year to, been really enjoying reading those who posted updates there already!

Who’s in??

jackieblack

Thanks for setting this up again, belfastgirl23 - I’m in! I find it helps to keep me focused and accountable (to myself)

Will post my ‘resolutions’ (I like to think of them as personal challenges) when I’ve finished arranging my thoughts and have the headspace to put words together coherently 😁

BellaLasagna2018

I’m in too! Thank you, Belfastgirl23

I too will ponder a while before posting all of my goals for 2023. I turn 60 Next month too, so it very much feels like new year, new decade, and a good opportunity for new goals, but so far I have:

- get fit and lose weight because I have a nice family holiday planned in July, and it would be lovely to be fit and active for the whole of that week;
- Get on with some DIY, decorating and gardening as I have just moved and have a good list of things to do; 
- explore the area I now live in; 

to be continued…. 

belfastgirl23

Resolutions 2023

Wow I have been looking back at my resolutions on previous threads and it has been really interesting. There are some areas where I have made real progress on building consistent habits - tracking food, daily walking, regular exercise classes and ultimately managing to maintain my weight for a couple of years now at a level I can live with. Also noting that for many years I had ‘drink less alcohol’ on there and I am two years alcohol free today. So there’s been a lot of progress and while I have a lot of goals listed below, a fair bit of it is keeping up with something I’ve already successfully embedded.

I also want to make some habits more consistent this year - meditation, sleep routine, flexibility (yoga) and dealing with small health issues before they become urgent. 

Word of the year: Flexible

Health - daily habits

·       Walk 5 miles

·       Yoga/stretching 

·       Meditation

·       Track food and weigh myself

·       Bed 10.30-11.15

·       Exercise classes x4 per week

·       Journal/accountability practice

·       Keep up with small health tasks - dentist, eye tests, dealing with dry skin etc and replace my dental guard and take better care of it this time!

 

Work

·       Set my workstation up properly and get a new monitor

·       Develop a work schedule for the coming year incorporating new tasks and training

·       At least get to first draft of application for higher level professional accreditation

·       Complete ongoing training course and work on professional practice

·       Recruit, mentor and support a new team member

·       Ask for an increment if the above completed successfully

·       Create and hold time and space for focused work - 90 mins pd most days 

·       Identify 3 key tasks daily and track small tasks using tally marks 

 

Other

·       Visit relative in Spain

·       Actively reach out to people (need to come up with a metric for this)

·       Give blood x 2 (if they’ll have it!)

Finances and administration

·       Make a will

·       Create a schedule of household tasks and implement weekly ‘power hour’ to tackle them

·       Get financial advice re my pension and possibly divert more £ into it

·       Overpay mortgage by equivalent of one month’s payment

belfastgirl23

@jackieblack I think you accidentally posted next year’s goals on last year’s thread, you might want to repost here again  

jackieblack

belfastgirl23 said:

@jackieblack I think you accidentally posted next year’s goals on last year’s thread, you might want to repost here again  

Oops 🤦🏻‍♀️ 😳 Thanks for letting me know! 

jackieblack

Right then, 2023 aims… 

1. To continue to support my Mum both with her new health problems - she will imminently be having major surgery which will take at least 8-12 weeks to recover from (assuming the surgery is successful) - and also with managing my Dad who has vascular dementia.

2. To continue to support my daughter and help with my gorgeous granddaughter - my daughter returns to work part-time in January and my son-in-law recently changed his job and no longer has his days off on the days she’s arranged to work (🤦🏻‍♀️), so I have adjusted my hours at work so that I can have my granddaughter one night and the following day each week. It means I’m working 4 longer days during term time and also some hours during the school holidays, but means I’ll get regular time with my granddaughter every week and they’ll get regular family time together most weekends - they live 45 minutes away from me so there’s a fair bit of driving backwards and forwards needed to make it work (which won’t be easy during bad weather) but the petrol cost for both journeys is less than the cost of another day at nursery so we’ll see how it goes… there’s lots of moving parts to these arrangements! 

3. De-cluttering… again… 🤦🏻‍♀️
Although I got rid of a lot, too much of the ‘stuff’ that was being stored in the room that was formerly my daughter’s bedroom, and is now my granddaughter’s bedroom, ended up in my sewing room (the box room). I need to get this sorted out in order to unearth the sewing table and machine and make the room usable again.  (This will require having the time needed to sort it, something I haven’t had a lot of in the last year.) 

4. To use up all my various stashes of stuff and not buy any more until I’ve used what I already have (I have started a separate thread for this to hopefully keep myself accountable.) This should also help with the decluttering.

5. To continue to make offset overpayments to my mortgage in preparation for either home improvements or moving house at some point in the future. 

6. To continue to do what is necessary to control my own medical condition - I currently have this ‘in remission’ due to a radical change in my eating habits. Unfortunately this means my grocery bill is considerably higher than it used to be, but I’m treating it as an investment in my future health and making changes elsewhere to accommodate this in my budget planning.

These feel like enough to be manageable but will still be a challenge - I think ‘keeping on keeping on going’ will be the key 🤞🏻

belfastgirl23

Bumping this in case you want to look at progress while there’s still time @jackieblack and @BellaLasagna2018 - just over two months left!

jackieblack

Thanks, belfastgirl23

I honestly cannot believe how fast this year has flown past!

Right… A bit of a mixed bag…

1. To continue to support my Mum both with her new health problems and also with managing my Dad who has vascular dementia.

Well, Mum had her surgery (eventually) and has recovered as much as she’s going to. She was very unwell after starting her new chemo (the oncologist said that the toxicity was amplified by the effects of the previous chemo still in her system) but that has improved with a low dose of steroid. 


2. To continue to support my daughter and help with my gorgeous granddaughter 

I have my granddaughter for 24 hours each week during term time and 48 hours during school holidays when her nursery is closed. She is a complete delight but quite tiring - I can’t quite believe that she will be 2 in a few weeks!

3. De-cluttering… again… 🤦🏻‍♀️

Fail - no time for this at all - the ‘stuff’ is all in my garage now as I had a new boiler in the summer and the heating people needed access to all the radiators - I know that amongst it there are things that I need to bring back into the house now as I don’t want them to be affected by the cold/damp of the garage over winter, however I need a dry day to coincide with when I’m at home in order to achieve this as I’ll need to hoik stuff out onto the lawn to make the room needed to find them!

4. To use up all my various stashes of stuff and not buy any more until I’ve used what I already have

Well, I haven’t bought any more, but neither have I used any 🤦🏻‍♀️

5. To continue to make offset overpayments to my mortgage in preparation for either home improvements or moving house at some point in the future. 

Overpayments have been offset and will be used to reduce the balance when my fixed rate ends in the new year, to mitigate against some of the increase in the monthly payment that will happen with the increased interest rate 

6. To continue to do what is necessary to control my own medical condition - I currently have this ‘in remission’

Recent blood test shows an increase but I’m still currently ‘in remission’ - definitely need to keep a closer eye on this

DigSunPap

I am looking to give up tea and biscuits next year - I have them most nights. Need to stop buying them

belfastgirl23

jackieblack said:

Thanks, belfastgirl23

I honestly cannot believe how fast this year has flown past!

Right… A bit of a mixed bag…

1. To continue to support my Mum both with her new health problems and also with managing my Dad who has vascular dementia.

Well, Mum had her surgery (eventually) and has recovered as much as she’s going to. She was very unwell after starting her new chemo (the oncologist said that the toxicity was amplified by the effects of the previous chemo still in her system) but that has improved with a low dose of steroid. 


2. To continue to support my daughter and help with my gorgeous granddaughter 

I have my granddaughter for 24 hours each week during term time and 48 hours during school holidays when her nursery is closed. She is a complete delight but quite tiring - I can’t quite believe that she will be 2 in a few weeks!

3. De-cluttering… again… 🤦🏻‍♀️

Fail - no time for this at all - the ‘stuff’ is all in my garage now as I had a new boiler in the summer and the heating people needed access to all the radiators - I know that amongst it there are things that I need to bring back into the house now as I don’t want them to be affected by the cold/damp of the garage over winter, however I need a dry day to coincide with when I’m at home in order to achieve this as I’ll need to hoik stuff out onto the lawn to make the room needed to find them!

4. To use up all my various stashes of stuff and not buy any more until I’ve used what I already have

Well, I haven’t bought any more, but neither have I used any 🤦🏻‍♀️

5. To continue to make offset overpayments to my mortgage in preparation for either home improvements or moving house at some point in the future. 

Overpayments have been offset and will be used to reduce the balance when my fixed rate ends in the new year, to mitigate against some of the increase in the monthly payment that will happen with the increased interest rate 

6. To continue to do what is necessary to control my own medical condition - I currently have this ‘in remission’

Recent blood test shows an increase but I’m still currently ‘in remission’ - definitely need to keep a closer eye on this

Still time to get that decluttering done if the weather holds up. 

Glad to hear the various medical conditions are going in the right direction as well and that you’re having fun with your granddaughter, though you’re right it is tiring!